


Song for an Old Friend

by hyenateeth



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Non-Binary Character, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-18 23:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13110729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenateeth/pseuds/hyenateeth
Summary: Well, she thought, holding in her tears, they all had to live with the choices that were made. Aria had to live with her own, and with Cassander’s. They were gone, and this is what she was left with.





	Song for an Old Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gogollescent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/gifts).



> Inspired by the excellent prompt "Aria going to a holo-exhibit and wrestling with the reality of Cass's shitty legacy" - the minute I saw that I knew I had to treat it! I hope you enjoy, and happy Yuletide!

It had never been like Aria to try to keep a low profile - even when she was literally doing criminal activities. She had become Aria Joie so young - had been famous for so many years, she barely knew how - and to be fair, on Counterwight, she rarely needed to. "Aria Joie" might has well have been a disguise, and even when it wasn't, standing out was just in her nature.

Which is why it felt so odd, waking up on that morning, dressing to blend in. But she had to, had known that since the moment Orth had forwarded her the announcement. So, she woke up early and dressed in clothes she had never worn, and looked at herself in the full-length mirror they kept in their bedroom.

"Do you want me to come?" asked Jacqui from behind her, still lying in bed. Jacqui slept in most days, allowed herself the luxury of laziness that hadn't been afforded to her before. Sometimes, Aria allowed herself to do the same.

"No," she answered honestly, still looking at her own reflection. She had developed wrinkles - crows feet under her eyes, smile lines around her mouth. They would be easy to get rid of - getting rid of wrinkles was as easy as dyeing your hair - but Aria thought she might like to keep them. It was... nice, seeing those signs of her own age. Growing old had never been on her mind, so it was a pleasant surprise to see it happening. Jacqui was getting them too, laugh lines and crows feet and creasing around her forehead - and they had never talked about it, but she was pretty sure she felt the same. 

"I need to go alone," she continued, still taking in her own reflection. 

Jacqui nodded and reached out one of her large, metal hands, taking Aria's own cybernetic hand and squeezing it, comforting.

The Starlight Express Aria took was a new one, faster and quieter than any from when she was younger, and the crowds murmured in the ways crowds did, constant noise just loud enough that Aria could lose herself in her thoughts. When she reached her stop the people spilled out like a tube being squeezed - and then a short walk, and Aria was there.

The large holo sign on the side of the building towered over her, a familiar face animated with the title of the exhibit in bold letters:  _Cassander Timaeus Berenice: A Man Too Much of Two Worlds_

The Cassander in the holo was a Cass Aria had never known - it was a clip from an old Apostolosian wartime propaganda film, featuring Cass on the throne, looking steely and determined, light shining behind them, reflecting off of his crown.  

They looked so young.  

The crowd was bustling- it was the grand opening after all. The first stop of the greatly anticipated touring exhibition on the life of the war hero Cassander - and as Aria filed into the building, buying her ticket, she felt as if her stomach was twisted in a knot. 

The images of Cass assaulted her eyes – projections and videos and statues – all images of her old friend throughout his life, and for a moment, Aria wondered if it would be too much. But, she steeled herself. She had faced greater horrors than a museum exhibit, surely. So, with the guise of wide-eyed curiosity, she filed into a crowd behind a tour guide, and walked up the first display.

On a screen there was a video, something between a home movie and a propaganda film, of Cassander, younger than she had ever seen them, toddling through an Apostolosian mansion – one of the royal families vacation homes from the looks of it, their chubby cheeks rounded in a grin. The tour guide was talking, something about the political state Cassander had grown up in, but Aria couldn’t bring herself to listen with any interest.

Instead, she watched Cassander on the screen, waving at the camera and smiling – and she wondered – what was it like, growing up like that. Aria had grown up in the spotlight, even before she had signed with JoyPark at a young age she had grown up performing, singing, whatever she could do to keep herself on stage. She had been a local child star before she had become a real star – and she had later wondered if she had not been missing something, something privacy allowed in children. Awkwardness, gangly limbs and uncertainty, something – and as she watched the screen change into a slightly older Cass, already sitting with their back straight, princely, she wondered if they had felt the same. It was arrogant, maybe, to compare her dancing in front of a crowd to representing an entire nation of people, but, well.

The tour continued, almost leaving Aria out of step as she got lost in her own thoughts, and she hurried after the crowd to the next display, of Cass when they had taken the throne. Cass had rarely talked about their time on the throne when she had known them, but the unease was always there. Having something they were never expected to, but having it taken away – Aria could understand their struggle there.

And then the tour guide kept talking, saying nothing bad per say, but highlighting their ambition, what power they had briefly held before it being taken away, and Aria felt her stomach begin to drop.

It continued as she went through the tour – the double talk, the implications. They were painting them as something they weren’t, she realized. Cass- Cass was not perfect. But this wasn’t who Cass was, someone so power hungry they would abandon their people. This wasn’t the Cass she had known, who she had shared a ship with, who had made her squid ink pasta, who she had sparred with.

Here, surrounded by images of her old friend, she had never felt more distant from them.

Seeing herself was just as surreal – Cassander’s unlikely partnership with Aria Joie drawing some chuckles from the crowd. They didn’t understand – of course they didn’t. How could they?

Before they reached the end, Aria had to leave. She couldn’t look at the holo image they had of their death, an artistic representation of them in the Apokine, pinning down Rigour. It knocked the air out of her and infuriated her at the same time. She could hardly breathe looking at it, and she wanted to scream – _What do you know? You weren’t there! They didn’t call you – you didn’t hear their last words!_

But she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. So instead she stormed out, through the sea images, ignoring the strange looks and whispers she knew she was getting.

It wasn’t until she was outside she let herself scrub her eyes, not letting any tears fall.

For a moment, she felt anger, anger at Cass. How dare they leave her, how dare they make her go through this. It was illogical, but it burned in her chest. It was hard. It was so hard.

Well, she thought, holding in her tears, they all had to live with the choices that were made. Aria had to live with her own, and with Cassander’s. They were gone, and this is what she was left with.

Restlessly, she pulled out her tele-communicator. She wanted to call… someone. Who? Mako was her first thought, but he would be busy, and he had lost so much, she didn’t want to bring up any more of that pain. Jacqui was her second – but… It wasn’t that Jacqui wouldn’t understand, but she couldn’t bring herself to make that call either.

So she dialed Orth.

“Have you seen it?” she asked when he answered, in lieu of a greeting.

“I haven’t,” came the voice on the other end, older, weathered, but distinctly Orth. “But I’ve heard.”

“They’re… They’re wrong about them Orth! What everyone thinks about them is wrong. But they’re all saying these things and everyone is nodding and… They’re a hero! They saved everyone! How can they say these things?”

“Cass is a hero, no one is denying that. But its been a long time Aria – babies born after Rigour’s fall are teenagers now. Perceptions… change. And sometimes nothing can stop that.”

“What about you?” snapped Aria, not meaning to sound as accusatory as it came out.

“What about me?”

“You wrote that book about Ibex – I mean, Attar. You changed what everyone thought about him, you could do it-“

“Aria, its different. You know it is. If I did something like that… People would call it propaganda. No one would want it – people wanted a different narrative with Attar. They don’t with Cass.”

Aria turned and looked at the big holo display behing her, of Cass in an old propaganda film. Propaganda – she knew about that. She thought about the songs she used to sing, the shows, all of it.

“Its not fair,” she choked out, once again fighting back tears.

“I know its not Aria. It was never fair.”

Silence fell over the line, as people passed her by. Once again, she was anonymous in a crowd.

“I’ll call you again later,” she said finally. “Or, I’ll come see you. We can get lunch.”

“I’d like that Aria.”

She hung up, and stared at the projection for a long time. She imagined them beside her – what they would say. The reserved laugh, the quiet joke they would only let her hear.

She wished – she wished she could write music about it, the way she used to when anything troubled her. She still wrote it sometimes, snippets of songs she never finished – but no one listened to her music anymore.

Still, as she road the train home, she sung to herself, quietly, a song for one person, a song no one would ever hear

**Author's Note:**

> I finished COUNTER/Weight well after Yuletide sign ups, but I was obsessed with it and knew I needed to write at least one treat for it! I was super inspired by one little part of your letter, so I hope you like!
> 
> Since Cass canonically seems to go by both he/him and they/them pronouns I went back and forth on which to use, or if I should use both, but I went with just they/them for consistency's sake.
> 
> Come say hello on my [tumblr](http://hyenateeth.tumblr.com/)!


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